Ammunition bodies, especially artillery or mortar projectiles, are conventionally produced by preparing, individually on a production line, the projectile casing and then introducing into it, by casting, the explosive charge. Subsequently, the flow-over of the cast and solidified explosive has to be removed. Often, an additional mechanical working of the charge is required, such as to make room for a detonator.
A disadvantage of the known method resides in the fact that a change-over of production to a different type of projectile, for instance from explosive ammunition to training ammunition, takes up a considerable amount of time.
As shown by DE-OS 2003990, universally usable projectiles are already known. In these projectiles, according to the desired purpose, it is possible, using a modular system, to combine differing components with the same projectile casing. The projectile described in this disclosure has a projectile jacket surrounding the projectile casing on its outside. In spite of the greater ease of production change-over resulting from such a modular system, the disclosed projectile still requires a relatively cumbersome and therefore time-consuming change-over.
A further drawback of the projectile according to DE-OS 2003990 stems from the fact that both the explosive charge enclosed by the projectile casing and the projectile jacket can be checked or inspected only with difficulty. Such checking can be effected only indirectly, such as by the use of x-rays or ultrasound reflection, which is expensive and requires the use of trained personnel.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,956 describes a projectile casing comprised of two housing parts joinable by means of a coupling. This facilitates the opening of the projectile casing for checking of the components therein. This design further facilitates the mounting of different building components for different applications in the projectile casings, which remain of the same configuration. The above disclosure does not, however, deal with the problem of a rapid change-over of production to differently equipped projectiles.
It is an object of the invention to develop a method of the above-mentioned type to permit a rapid change-over between ammunition bodies for different applications, as well as the reliable checking, in a simple manner and also by not particularly trained personnel, of the explosive charge. A further object is the use of the method in the production of ammunition bodies of a configuration that may be varied within wide limits.